[H-verkko] Agricolan kirja-arvostelut: Acoustic Environments in Change/ Five Village Soundscapes

[agricola at utu.fi]

Agricolaan on lähetetty uusi kirja-arvostelu:
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James Andean  M.Mus., Sibelius Akatemia
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Arvosteltavana:
Järviluoma, Helmi; Kytö, Meri; Truax, Barry; Uimonen, Heikki; Vikman,
Noora (toim.)/ Schafer, R. Murray (toim.): Acoustic Environments in
Change & Five Village Soundscapes.. TAMK University of Applied
Sciences, 2010. 431 sivua.


Acoustic Environments in Change/ Five Village Soundscapes
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Acoustic Environments in Change is a publication of recent Finnish
research in soundscape studies, coupled with a reprint of an older,
seminal Canadian study of the same sites.  The appearance of a major
new soundscape text is a rare and important occasion.


Despite being nearly forty years old, the fascinating field of
soundscape studies is still seen as being somewhat in its infancy.
Having begun on the west coast of Canada in the early 1970s, much of
the work in this field remains focused around a few centres of
activity, of which Canada and Finland are currently of central
importance. Soundscape texts tend to be few and far between; major
works on the subject include founder R. Murray Schafer's seminal work
The Tuning of the World (1977), Barry Truax's Acoustic Communication
(2001) (although this has a somewhat broader mandate), and several
publications by the World Soundscape Project (of which Schafer and
Truax are central members), including Five Village Soundscapes
(originally published in 1977, but reprinted as part of the
publication under review). Thus, the appearance of a major new
soundscape text is a rare and important occasion; the publication of
Acoustic Environments in Change by the TAMK University of Applied
Sciences is just such an event.

The field of soundscape studies was founded in Canada at Simon Fraser
University by composer R. Murray Schafer in the early 1970s. Intended
to address a critical lack of attention to our sound environment and
its effect upon our lives and well-being, it posited a model in which
people and their environment are linked, engage and interact through
sound. Rejecting the rather simplistic methods of sound measurements
and noise levels, Schafer attempted a detailed analysis of our sound
environment in terms of our relationship with the sounds around us,
developing terminology for different elements of this sonic
environment, theorising regarding the possible impacts and
interactions between communities and their sound environments, and
proposing new methods and approaches for addressing pressing issues
which have developed primarily as a result of the rush of change
brought on by rapid urbanisation.

The publication under review is a particularly fascinating and rare
proposition from a number of points of view. It combines recent
Finnish scholarship in soundscape research with a reprint of the
seminal Five Village Soundscapes publication of the 1970s, together
with four compact discs which combine the field recordings of the
1970s publication with new field recordings by the Finnish group. It
is also remarkable in that the Finnish researchers chose for their
subjects the same five villages studied in Five Village Soundscapes
(with the addition of a sixth site - the Finnish village of Nauvo),
with the goal of combining their own individual research interests
with a comparative consideration of changes in these soundscapes over
the years since the earlier study. This offers a unique opportunity,
rich in possibilities.

Although the earlier study comprises the second part of this volume,
we will consider it here first, as the later study is predicated on
this work. Five Village Soundscapes remains an important study in the
literature of soundscape research; out of print for a number of years,
its inclusion in this volume is extremely welcome. The text has been
diligently reproduced, with full inclusion of all of the charts,
diagrams, and photographs of the original publication; the inclusion
of compact discs containing the recordings which were included on
cassette with the original publication is a particular delight. The
World Soundscape Project's recordings in the 1970s are a wonderful
combination of field document and artful condensation and commentary;
these recordings still sound wonderful more than three decades later,
and have acquired further value, both as a sonic window into a time
now gone, and as a comparison with the more recent recordings.

The Five Village Soundscapes study makes for very interesting
reading, and is a groundbreaking study, though not without its flaws.
The Canadian research group selected five European villages for study:
Skruv, in Sweden; Bissingen, in Germany; Cembra, in Italy; Dollar, in
Scotland; and Lesconil, a Breton village in France. A number of
methods were developed with which to collect data regarding the
soundscapes of these villages. Key sounds in each village were
listed, measured, and mapped; researchers were dispatched to
different areas of each village, to note at regular intervals over a
twenty-four hour period the sounds heard; traffic counts were taken
over the course of a given day; local school children were asked to
list their favourite and least-favourite sounds; older members of the
community were interviewed regarding changes in the soundscape and
local sounds which might have disappeared. The results are generally
informative and interesting, and provide a launching pad for
discussion and consideration of the various soundscapes involved.

It must be noted, however, that there are problems with the study's
methodology. While a great deal of effort has clearly gone into the
collection of data, the analysis of this data is somewhat haphazard:
while some of the data is considered in some detail, some is simply
listed, without being explored further or developed. A larger
problem, however, is a general tendency to draw sweeping conclusions
without having sufficiently analysed the data, or which cannot be
deduced from the data given. The primary culprit here is the
systematic drawing of direct connections between recent changes in
the soundscape and a reduction in the quality of life of the local
inhabitants. While one may be in complete agreement with such
statements, or at least sympathise with such views, it must be
pointed out that, by and large, these conclusions cannot be made from
the data collected in this study. The most obvious reason for this is
the general lack of comparative data regarding quality of life, which
would obviously need to be combined with the soundscape data for such
extrapolations to accurately be made.

There is a related problem of tone in the writing, which tends to
shift considerably between that of a formal study, and a surprisingly
casual, conversational manner. While this often makes for a very
readable text, it can also make it unclear how some statements should
be taken. Again, the primary issue here is the lack of distinction
between pure speculation, and conclusions based on analysis of the
collected data. It is thus difficult to tell when this constitutes a
methodological failure, and when a simple oversight; a series of
speculative statements, noted as such by being conditioned with terms
like 'perhaps', 'we wonder if', 'we contend that', can suddenly be
followed by sweeping statements which entirely lack such qualifiers,
and which thereby have the appearance of grounded conclusions. It is
possible that some of these are conclusions based on prior studies;
if this is the case, however, these need to be referenced or
footnoted. On at least one occasion, at the top of page 394, a vague
reference is made to 'previous studies' in support of the authors'
conclusions, without reference to the studies in question.

Some of these flaws, it should be noted, are acknowledged or directly
addressed, particularly in Barry Truax's new introduction provided
with this new edition; they are also to some extent mentioned in the
conclusion of the original volume. Curiously, the bulk of the book's
analysis - arguably its most significant content -  is contained in
this conclusion, yet this is only a few short pages long, compared
with the long expositions of collected data.

However, these shortcomings are perhaps easy to forgive. Five Village
Soundscapes is important not so much as a solid piece of social
science research, but rather as an exploratory and groundbreaking
attempt to develop new strategies for soundscape research, and to
explore the subject villages using these methods. Taken on these
terms, it remains a seminal and valuable work.

We continue with a consideration of the first part of the current
volume - Acoustic Environments in Change. This offers a number of
articles written by members of the Finnish research team, exploring
specific aspects of research conducted in the late 1990s and early
2000s in the same villages as the earlier study. This new study
proposes to compare and contrast the soundscapes encountered with
those described in the earlier study, while simultaneously updating
methodology and approach in accordance with developments over the
intervening years, and to match the somewhat different backgrounds of
the Finnish research group (with backgrounds in anthropology,
ethnomusicology, and cultural studies, in contrast with the Canadian
group of the 1970s, which was comprised primarily of composers and
musicians.)

Acoustic Environments in Change is immediately seen to be a very
different study from its predecessor. For one thing, this collection
of discrete articles by individual authors contrasts with the unified
study provided in Five Village Soundscapes. Sites are discussed
separately; subjects and methodologies change from article to
article; and a significant amount of effort is made to make explicit,
and to contextualise, the methodologies used, and to consider the
authors' relationships with their subjects and methods. The authors
are careful to situate their studies, comments and analysis within
the broader context of both soundscape studies and a wider range of
associated fields; their methods are discussed, as well as any
resulting limitations. Some of the concerns raised with the Five
Village Soundscapes study are thus directly addressed here; these are
also perhaps placed in perspective as consequences of changes in
philosophy and methods over the years between the two publications.

The book's article format has many benefits, for example allowing for
a range of perspectives and angles to be given due consideration;
however, it is not without its drawbacks. Not all of the articles are
of equal quality; more importantly, some important elements of the
book's theme fall somewhat between the cracks along the way. The
articles provide an often fascinating look at the villages of the
original study from very different perspectives, and often much more
intensively; however, surprisingly little effort is given to
comparison and contrast between the material, data and recordings of
this newer study with those collected for Five Village Soundscapes,
despite this being one of the study's primary raisons d'être. While
some articles do focus in particular upon soundscapes of the past or
changes in the soundscape, these are largely treated without
reference to the earlier study. What little direct comparison is
provided comes primarily in the final article, and mainly consists of
pairing data collected with this study with similar data collected for
the previous study, with limited analysis of the implications of the
differences and similarities that can be observed between them. This
analysis also occasionally shows the earlier study's tendency to
confuse speculation with informed analysis - for example in
discussion of differences between the sound preference test results
of the 1970s and those of the more recent study, in which statements
are made concerning the motivations of the students filling out the
earlier tests, of which these authors, thirty years later, can have
had no direct knowledge. Occasionally, some articles also seem
somewhat distanced from the book's theme on a more general level,
referencing soundscape only peripherally, in favour of broader
cultural or ethnographic themes.

The inclusion of the Finnish village of Nauvo in this study seems an
apt one, as it offers opportunities to explore shifts in perspective
between researcher and subject: how does the study change when one is
studying one's own native soundscape, rather than an unfamiliar
soundscape? Unfortunately, such questions are left unaddressed; in
fact, Nauvo is given very little attention compared with the other
villages,  which is both surprising and regrettable.

Several of the articles are particularly notable for their
contributions. Heikki Uimonen gives an excellent historical overview
of soundscape studies, which provides extremely valuable context,
both for this book and for Five Village Soundscapes. Considering the
relative lack of such texts in soundscape literature, this chapter
serves as a valuable introduction to the field. Helmi Järviluoma's
use of interviews with older members of the communities to explore
past, often vanished, elements of the soundscape, as well as
community attitudes to changes in the soundscape over time, is a
particularly effective development of soundscape methodology. This is
based, to a certain extent, on the fortuitous encounter between the
Five Village Soundscapes research group and Dollar resident David
Graham, whose remarkable sonic memory provided one of the most
enjoyable passages of the 1970s study, and who is interviewed once
again by Heikki Uimonen for Acoustic Environments in Change.
Järviluoma, however, has expanded from this chance encounter in the
1970s to elaborate a powerful tool, which she grounds convincingly in
the broader context of cultural studies methodology. The windows into
the community, both past and present, that this provides, in articles
on Skruv, Bissingen, and especially in her article on Lesconil, are
particularly rich and engaging. Her brief inclusion of issues of
gender in soundscape in the latter article is also a relevant
addition, deftly handled.

Although almost all of the articles provide very interesting reading,
some weaker points can sometimes be noted. While some articles very
successfully provide a coherent and cohesive presentation of their
theme, some display a tendency to ramble, or present a string of
anecdotes which, while pleasant to read, lack a clear connecting
thread and provide limited analysis. Some articles spend more time
describing their process and methodology than presenting the content
or results of the study; in these instances, it might have been
preferable to see more of the actual data, rather than focusing on
the manner in which the data was collected. It must also be said that
one article in particular is far from matching the other articles in
the collection in quality and in level of writing; offering little of
scholarly value, one wonders if it might better have been left out of
the book. Finally, the quality of the english varies considerably
between the articles; while some are largely impeccable, others are
more problematic, and in the worst example it begins to interfere
with the understanding of the author's meaning. The book would also
have benefitted from more thorough proofing, with a number of
instances of typographical and other errors.

However, such flaws should not deter the prospective reader: Acoustic
Environments in Change is a strong contribution to soundscape research
and literature, and the authors should be proud of their achievements
here. Coupled with Five Village Soundscapes, and in a handsome
package, with the four compact discs of field recordings tucked into
the slipcase, the book is too tempting a proposition to resist, and
while it is important to recognise the occasional weaknesses of the
respective studies, it is even more important to acknowledge the
strong work of all of the contributors in forging a relatively new
field and discipline which has much to offer, in which this book is
assured a proud and important place.



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